Roast Chicken and Chicken Stock

To roast a chicken:

Put slices of a whole onion on the bottom of your roasting pan along with the cloves of 2 heads of garlic. You can stuff the cavity of the bird with whatever fresh herbs you like: thyme, oregano or tarragon...we didn't because we didn't have any fresh... Put the bird on the rack bottom side up. Brush with melted butter and apply seasonings - we used a poultry rub, but any seasonings or just salt and pepper will do. Bake in 375 oven for 1 hour - we kept it covered at this point.

After 1 hour, turn the bird right side up. Brush with more butter and apply more seasoning. Bake another hour - at this point we uncovered it.

Carve chicken as desired. Add 1/4 - 1/2 cup (we were generous) white wine to the drippings and begin to bring to a boil. Add 4 cups of chicken stock (we used homemade stock given to us my by friend Becca). Allow to boil rapidly, stirring frequently, until reduced to about 1/2 the original volume. Strain and serve warm. You can also thicken this sauce more by adding 1 TBS gelatin if desired, but we didn't. It made a pretty thin sauce, but delicious. It would have been great over mashed potatoes, but they're on my no-no list...thats ok, I enjoyed it all the same!

I plan to use the carcass to make stock for chicken noodle soup. I'll add to it 4 cups of water, 2 tbs vinegar, some onion, carrots, and celery, and let it stand for an hour. Then I'll bring it to a boil, then simmer for 6 to 24 hours. About ten minutes before its done, I'll add a bunch of parsley. Then I'll strain it all and put it in my fridge until the fat settles out. Once I've skimmed off the fat, it'll be ready to go! I'll use the veggies and chicken meat bits for the soup, with some nice big noodles I found.